Imagine my surprise and delight to scan Memeorandum and find this snarky little piece written by two liberal women, bemoaning the fact that Sarah Palin has become the new face of “groundbreaking women” in politics. Of course, it’s filled with potshots at Palin, including baseless insinuations and outright accusations that Palin has been a “setback” for “women’s rights” like “reproductive freedom,” etc. Outrageously enough, they attribute her successes to, in part, the “progressive liberal feminist movement” (barf).

Nevertheless, they see the trail she’s blazed since being selected to be John McCain’s vice presidential nominee, and in their piece they implore Democrats to stop ‘ignoring’ the women in the Democrat party, which they believe has been ongoing since the 2008 election of Barack Obama. They see the left as putting powerful women politicos like Hillary Clinton on the ‘back of the bus’ – implying that Hillary is doing little more than a shill for President Obama in her role as Sec. of State … as if to suggest that any Secretary of State who does the job they are paid to do as part of an administration is a “sell out.”

Anyway ….

I’d excerpt the piece, but it’s too juicy to pick out any one paragraph here or there, so please read the whole thing.

The fact is that these liberal feminists are recognizing the reality that their worst nightmare has come true: No longer can liberal “feminists” be credibly viewed as being the sole “proxy” authoritative voices for millions of American women. Unfortunately, for decades, even though the conservative woman’s voice has been strong and vocal, it’s been the liberal woman’s voice – via the likes of Gerry Ferraro, Babs Boxer, Hillary Clinton, and others – that has been center stage when it comes to policy debates on women’s issues. The conservative woman’s voice has been treated as meaningless, “regressive” background noise by not only the mainstream media, but also by militant female Democrats both inside and outside government who have claimed for years that all “diverse” female viewpoints should be welcomed at the table, but who in reality have only accepted those “diverse” voices whose messages most often lined up with the liberal left’s. In other words, liberal feminists have tried to do exactly what they’ve accused men of doing for years: Effectively and figuratively smothering female voices they didn’t want heard. Irony alert.

While it’s true that strong conservative female pundits like Michelle Malkin, Mona Charen and others were on the scene fighting the good fight well before Sarah Palin was launched onto the national landscape in 2008, Palin being the Republican vice presidential nominee put the face of a very powerful staunchly conservative female politico on every TV in America for the first time. And, to the shock of some, I’m sure, she wasn’t the scary caricature that the hard left had painted of the typical conservative woman for decades. She was young, successful, married, a mother of four, a governor, and she came across as “one of us.”

And she denounced liberal feminist pet issues like abortion on demand and mandatory sex ed in schools, and, unlike many liberal women in government, she was a strong supporter of the US military which meant – gasp – she didn’t hate men, nor did she blame them for all that was wrong with the world. Needless to say, this made her a Priority 1 Target for the radical feminists on the left who saw – and still see – Palin as a threat to the established hierarchy of the modern day “feminist movement.” Hence, the impassioned plea from the pages of the NYTimes today from two liberal feminists who apparently aren’t afraid to voice the concerns that so many of their cohorts have when it comes to the battle over who the face of the feminist movement should actually be: The traditional conservative woman who embraces her femininity, or the angry liberal feminist woman who loathes it?

You see, Palin has proved by example that a woman politician need not spout the pro-big government, pro-abortion, pro-welfare-state line. “Ms. Palin has spent much of 2010 burnishing her political bona fides and extending her influence by way of the Mama Grizzlies, a gang of Sarah- approved, maverick-y female politicians looking to ‘take back’ America with ‘common-sense’ solutions.” She sure did, and she proved herself to be the most effective female politician in the country. Sorry, Hillary — while you have been playing errand girl for the Obama foreign-policy train wreck, Palin has ascended to the throne. (Nancy Pelosi’s days are numbered.) The left is waving the white flag of surrender:

[…]

Palin not only trumped the left on style but she also managed to connect on nearly every issue — ObamaCare, bailouts, Israel, taxes, American exceptionalism, and the stimulus plan — in a way the president and his liberal supporters could not. For all of her supposed lack of “policy muscle,” it was she who defined the debate on ObamaCare and she who synced up with the Tea Party’s small-government, personal-responsibility, anti-tax-hike message. Who’s short on policy muscle — the White House or Palin? Does “engagement” of despots, Israel-bashing, and capitulation to Russia make for a meaty foreign-policy agenda? Go read a Palin foreign-policy address or two. Plenty of meat and common sense there.

Yep. In other words, not only are the liberal left afraid of Palin the conservative woman, they’re miffed when it comes to Palin the politico on policy, because on almost every major issue that has come before the American people since the crowning of Barack Obama, Palin’s been in agreement and more on the side of the average American Joe and Jane citizen than our socialistic “leader,” who believes its his “duty” to force the American people to accept his agenda, even if it means he might only be a one-term president. Palin, who Beltway elitists on the left AND right (are you listening, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, and David Frum?) have routinely dismissed as nothing more than a country bumpkin type who has no real appeal other than a cute accent, nice figure, and folksy, down-home appeal, has been trumping our Harvard-grad, smartest-man-in-America President on nearly every kitchen table issue facing America today. This is why so many liberals are left with little more than to try and diminish her based on her looks.

To expand this beyond Palin, it’s no wonder liberal Democrats, including left wing feminists and the policy wonks, are visibly insecure going into the fall elections. Thanks in no small part to the Palins, the Haleys, the Rubios, the Ryans, the DeMints, etc. of America, the political landscape is changing – and for the better. They are seeing conservative voices of all ages, races, sexes, etc. And after over a year and a half of ultra left wing policies coming out of Washington, DC – policies that bring with them the glaring footnote that government knows best how to best dictate what your choices are and how your money is spent – America appears to be saying “enough.” Let’s just hope this time around that, assuming Republicans gain a lot of ground in Congress come November, that they don’t forget what they were sent there for. Otherwise they, too, might see the exit door the next time they’re up for re-election. People are fed up and are holding their representatives accountable now more than ever. As it should be.

;)I love it! The liberal left feminists are yelling so loudly, and WE hear them all throwing tantrums. The American Conservative woman is ‘grounded’. We do not have meaningless one-night stands, cheat, are apt to marry, have children, attend school functions, Brownie meetings, attend baseball games, football games, share barbecue’s with neighbors and love life bigger than ever. We love the American Flag and everything America has stood for for hundreds of years. WE love America, not the whole wide world (we only visit). There will be no WORLD ORDER for American conservative women. We can cook up a gourmet meal, serve it and love a man all with great pride. Hillary is a feminist who allowed her hubby to get a BJ and forgave him, for what? She still looks foolish. Marriage is not supposed to be ‘OPEN’ Marriage is work for it is a contract with GOD. Not for political gain as Hillary has used it for decades. Bye Bye liberal females, Men still love a home-made gourmet meal with a pretty woman by their side, and WE love serving strong MEN dishes HOT!

Boy oh boy, Trudi, I am glad you expanded upon your second sentence. For a second I thought you were telling us the American Conservative woman had been sent to her room and couldn’t come over this weekend.

My favorite part of the op-ed piece was towards the end (emphasis mine):

“Imagine a Democrat willing to brag about breaking the glass ceiling at the explosive beginning, not the safe end, of her campaign.”
Democrats have played it safe and only go after approved targets – because of op-ed pieces like this.

“A liberal politician taking to Twitter to argue that big broods and a ‘culture of life’ are completely compatible with reproductive freedom.”
The distortion is actually on the liberals’ side. The early American feminists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton abhorred abortion and social pressure that would create a deadly adversarial relationship between mothers and their children. It was the modern movement that decided that “feminism” means guaranteeing men consequence-free sex. =))

“A smart, unrelenting female, who, unlike Ms. Palin, wants to tear down, not reinforce, traditional ways of looking at women.”
This is hilarious to me because the writer Anna Holmes founded Jezebel, a website that has taken on the new ways that women are portrayed in magazines – namely, photo-shopping them to make them more sexy. This is especially funny because traditionally magazines featured older women tastefully because they did so modestly. It’s only been with the “feminist” emphasis on sexual freedom that older women have to be youthful, “hot”, and (of course) available without consequences to men. ;)